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Glossary
DNS records

DNS records

Domain name system (DNS) records store important information about domains and hostnames. These records hold different types of information, such as the IP address of a website’s server, the email server associated with a domain, or information about the website’s security protocols, that are necessary for routing internet traffic to its intended destination.

They function like maps, directing DNS queries, or requests for information about a domain name or hostname, to the desired endpoint.

DNS records, also called zone files, live in authoritative nameservers. The information they contain exists in text files written in DNS syntax, a language composed of a string of characters that tells a DNS server how to do DNS queries. Some examples of what DNS syntax can instruct a DNS server to do include: 

  • Directing traffic to a specific IP address associated with a domain name
  • Set up email service for a domain name by specifying the email server’s location
  • Implement security measures by specifying the appropriate certificates

Every domain needs at least a few DNS records to allow users to access the website using the domain name. You can perform a DNS record lookup to check the records of any site.

The most common record type is an A record, which indicates a given domain's internet protocol (IP) address. Without A records, users must manually type in a website’s IP address for the site to load.

When a site has a subdomain like discourse.webflow.com, the subdomain will often have a DNS CNAME record that points to a root domain (webflow.com). This feature allows the host IP address to change without affecting a user’s bookmarks.

Visit Webflow University for help troubleshooting DNS settings and connecting a custom domain to your Webflow site.

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Other glossary terms

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Width

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Width defines how wide an element can be. This can be defined in absolute terms (pixels) or relative terms (ems, rems, percentages, viewport-height, or viewport-width).

Margin

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Margins are an essential spacing element of web design, dictating the amount of whitespace between a box and its surroundings.

Made in Webflow

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Made in Webflow showcases Webflow sites made by individuals and teams.

Position section

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A section in the Style panel that houses CSS properties related to the positioning of an element.

SCA and PSD2 Regulations

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Mid-September 2019, new European requirements for authenticating online payments were introduced in Europe as part of the second Payment Services Directive (PSD2). The Strong Customer Authentication (SCA) requirements apply to businesses in the European Economic Area (EEA) that accept online card payments from cardholders whose banks are also located in the EEA.Webflow Ecommerce payments are PSD2 and SCA compliant (i.e., support 3D Secure payments) for European customers.If you’re a merchant in the European Economic Area (EEA), all you need to do to ensure that your Webflow Ecommerce store is PSD2 and SCA compliant for your European customers is to republish your store if it wasn’t published on or after September 11, 2019. Read more about how to make your ecommerce store compliant in our Payment gateway article.

Height

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Defines how tall an element can be. This can be defined in absolute terms (pixels) or relative terms (ems, rems, percentages, viewport-height, or viewport-width).

Encapsulation

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Encapsulation is an object-oriented programming (OOP) process that combines functions and the data they manipulate into a single entity.

Webflow badge

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A visible "Made in Webflow" badge displayed in the bottom right corner of Webflow sites on Starter plans.

Head code

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Custom code that's added just before the closing </head> tag in your site's HTML file. Learn more about custom code in head and body tags.

Container

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An element that contains content.

Total Form Submissions

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The amount of times a site visitor submits data using your site's form(s).

Layout section

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A tab in the Add panel that houses prebuilt layouts for your Webflow site.

Typography

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A section in the Add panel that houses typography elements such as headings and paragraphs.

Delete element

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To remove an element and its content from your website.

Descendant selector

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A descendant selector is a CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) selector that targets elements nested inside a parent element.

Dynamic element

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Dynamic elements are web page components that can change based on user interaction or external factors, like a live news feed, without requiring a page refresh or reload.

Right margin

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Right margin is a CSS property that defines the space between the right edge of an element and its surroundings.

Sitemap URL

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The location your sitemap is stored in relation to your site, and what’s used when submitting your sitemap to search engines.

Effects

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A section in the Style panel that houses CSS properties for changing how an element appears, such as its opacity, outline, and box shadows.

Resolution

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Resolution is a metric measuring clarity and detail through the number of pixels displayed on a screen or used to render an image.

Combo class

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Combining two or more classes into a single selector to target an element.

Language code

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A language code is a standardized code of letters and numbers that represent different languages.

Redo

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To move forward one step while making changes to a Webflow site.

Display: grid

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The display: grid CSS property defines a website element (such as a button or header) as a grid container.

Minimum height

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The min-height CSS property defines an element’s minimum height.

URL

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A Uniform Resource Locator (URL) is a standardized web address format that allows users to identify and access an online resource.

CMS section

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A section in the Add panel that contains elements associated with the CMS.

Profile settings

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The area where you can manage your profile, email settings, and security settings.

RGB (Red-Green-Blue)

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RGB, an acronym for Red, Green, Blue, is a color model that screen displays use to represent various colors.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

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Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a collection of strategies to enhance a website’s ranking and visibility on search engines.

Empty elements

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Empty or void elements are HTML elements that don’t require a closing tag because they contain no content.

Parameter

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A parameter is a programming variable or value that transfers data between functions.

Base tag

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The base tag specifies the base URL for all relative links within HTML code for a specific page or document.

Component Module

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A section in the Add Panel that houses pre-built Webflow elements such as sliders, tabs, and lightboxes.

Algorithm

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An algorithm is a set of rules or steps that help solve problems or carry out specific tasks.

Locked site

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When you have more unhosted sites in your Dashboard than your Workspace plan allows, those additional sites past your limit will be “locked” until you upgrade your plan. When you upgrade, you’ll be allowed more unhosted sites (up to the limit for your Workspace plan) and will be able to access your previously locked sites.

Transfer site

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You can transfer sites from one Workspace to another Workspace.

Dashboard

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From your Dashboard, you can access, create, and manage all your sites.

Save as Backup

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The ability to manually save a version of your site that you can restore at a later date using the keyboard shortcut Command + Shift + S (on Mac) or Control + Shift + S (on Windows).‍

Structured Query Language (SQL)

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Structured Query Language (SQL) is a programming language that enables storing, retrieving, and manipulating information in a relational database.

Graphical User Interface (GUI)

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A Graphical User Interface (GUI) is a visual medium that enables visual interaction with software applications or electronic devices through elements like icons, buttons, and menus.

Sorting Collection lists

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You can sort your Collection items in multiple ways — select the field from the Collection you wish to filter from, then select the ordering option.

Heading

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A heading is a text element that provides a title or headline for a section of content on a webpage. These elements guide users and search engines through your content.

IP address

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An IP (Internet Protocol) address is a unique string of characters identifying devices connected to the internet.

Tutorials

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The fastest way to learn how to use Webflow.

Form button

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A form element that lets website visitors submit data to your form handler.

Dynamic content

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Content you create once, then publish in many different places across your website. As you update this content in the CMS, it automatically updates wherever it exists on your site, making it convenient to create and manage larger websites.

Static page

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A static page is a document with fixed content that makes up an individual web page on your site.

A/B testing

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A/B testing compares two different versions of something — like a web page or campaign — to determine which performs better.

Width: auto

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The way browsers calculate an element's width automatically where Block level elements fill the available space of its parent and Inline elements shrink to the size of its children/content.

Page name

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The title of a page in your site. This is visible in the Pages panel.

Sidebar

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A sidebar, typically positioned on the left or right side of a website or app, is a vertical component that contains supplemental information to enrich a webpage’s primary content.

Widget

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A widget is an interactive element embedded in a user interface that facilitates specific user actions or displays important information at a glance.

Dither

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Dithering is a design technique that simulates additional colors on a display to smooth transitions in images with limited color palettes.

Display property

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Display properties operate like instructions that tell a browser how to display the different parts of a webpage. You can customize an element’s appearance and layout by changing its display property.

.htaccess

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.htaccess is a powerful configuration file that allows you to configure and control how your website functions.

CMS Collection page

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A dynamic page that Webflow automatically creates for each Collection item. When you design a Collection page, all the pages that are created for each Collection item will have the same template but different content.

Cascading rules

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The order in which a Webflow site's CSS styles flow from desktop to mobile breakpoints.

Forms section

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A section of the Add panel that houses form elements like inputs, checkboxes, and radio buttons.

Application context

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An application context is a set of data that identifies an application’s tasks, where those tasks originate, and how those tasks are configured.

Meta title

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A meta title is an HTML element that defines a web page's title and appears in browser tabs and search snippets on search engine results pages (SERPs) as a clickable headline.

ASCII

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The American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII) is an encoding standard that assigns numerical values to characters and translates them into computer-readable code.

Background

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A website background is a visual element behind webpage content, enhancing aesthetic appeal and user engagement.

Borders

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The CSS border property delineates an HTML element.

Webflow CMS

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Webflow's content management system (CMS) is where dynamic content (Collections and their Collection items) is stored and maintained so you can reference it throughout your site. A CMS lets you input data in one location, then use Collection template pages or Collection lists to display that content without having to update the content displays one at a time.

SSL

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SSL (secure socket layer) is the standard method for establishing an encrypted link between a web server and a browser.

Beacon

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A beacon — also called a web beacon or web bug — is an HTML-embedded object that tracks user behavior on a web page.

Hyperlink

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Hyperlinks are clickable elements that allow users to navigate between web pages, documents, or other types of digital content.

Meta description

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An HTML attribute you can use to give a short description of the contents of a webpage. Search engines often display this in results pages (SERPs).

Web server

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A web server is a computer program or hardware device that delivers web content to clients using HTTP. It handles client requests for web pages, images, and videos.

Unpublished change

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A change that has been made in the Webflow Editor but will not appear on the live website until it’s published. You can track any unpublished changes on the bottom right of the Editor toolbar.

Certified

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A digital certificate is a data file embedded in the site that signals the site’s safety to visitors, internet service providers (ISPs), and servers.

Literal

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In JavaScript, literals are fixed values written directly into the code.

Padding

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Padding is a CSS property defining the space between an element's borders and its content.

Client-side

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Client-side is the user-facing part of a web app, responsible for processing user input and displaying content.

List

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An element that contains ordered (numbered) or unordered (bulleted) lists.

Custom domain hosting

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A Webflow service that lets you point a custom domain to your Webflow-hosted site.

Inline Frame (iframe)

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An inline frame or <iframe> is an HTML element that embeds an HTML document within another webpage.

Flex-align

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A flexbox property that lets you customize the alignment behavior of flex children, based on the cross-axis of the flex container. The cross axis is the opposite of the flex-direction property, so if you set the direction to vertical, the cross axis is horizontal. Options include start, center, end, baseline, and stretch.

Rich text element

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Allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually.

CRLF

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On Windows-based systems, the sequence of two ASCII characters representing a line break in text files is called "Carriage Return, Line Feed," or CRLF.

Maximum height (max height)

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The “max-height” CSS property defines an element’s maximum height.

User interface (UI)

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A user interface (UI) is any visual element humans interact with on a device, webpage, or application.

Shim

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A shim is a code snippet enabling modern web features to function within older programming or browsing environments.

Form submission

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When someone sends data through one of your site's forms.

Syntax error

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Syntax error refers to a mistake in code that violates the programming language’s rules and prevents the code from executing correctly.

Localization

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Localization (l10n) involves adapting digital content and applications to meet a specific region or culture’s language and conventions.

API

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APIs, or Application Programming Interfaces, are common code protocols that let apps safely exchange data with other apps, software, and hardware.

Switch field

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Available in CMS Collections. This field offers you a powerful filtering tool for Collection items. For example, you could create a switch labeled "Featured?" for Blog Posts, and then switch on the toggle to showcase particular posts.

Email template

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Email templates — or pre-designed HTML layouts — ensure consistent branding and visual aesthetic in marketing campaigns.

Footer code

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Footer code creates a section at the bottom of every web page that displays important information like disclaimers, copyright or contact information, and links to related documents.

Cipher suite

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A cipher suite is a collection of encryption algorithms that work together to secure a network connection.

Key

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A key, or web key, is a unique identifier that authorizes access to a webpage or service.

Public site

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A Webflow site that is publicly visible in your public profile and in Made in Webflow search results.

RSS

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Really Simple Syndication (RSS) is a web format that automatically distributes frequently updated content to subscribers, eliminating the need for subscribers to check the website manually to stay up to date.

Pagination settings

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Through the pagination settings, you can preview Collection list pages by choosing the page number from the page dropdown list, or you can switch to the previous or next page using the arrow keys.

Content management system (CMS)

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A content management system (CMS) is a tool for creating and managing a website and its content.

Save

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The Designer automatically saves your progress every 10 seconds.

Zapier

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A web app that helps you connect multiple third-party services together based on triggers and actions.

Design mode

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The mode that enables a designer to build in Webflow.
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